Victory

All day long, little extra celebrations started up. In the Mall, a model of a Gallic cock waltzed on a pole over the heads of the singing people. ‘It’s the Free French,’ said someone. The Belgians in the crowd tagged along after a Belgian flag that marched by, its bearer invisible. A procession of students raced through Green Park, among exploding squibs, clashing dustbin lids like cymbals and waving an immense Jeyes Disinfectant poster as a banner. American sailors and laughing girls formed a conga line down the middle of Piccadilly, and cockneys linked arms in the Lambeth Walk. It was a day and night of no fixed plan and no organized merriment. Each group danced its own dance, sang its own song, and went its own way as the spirit moved it. The most tolerant, self-effacing people in London on V-E Day were the police, who simply stood by, smiling benignly, while soldiers swung by one arm from lamp standards and laughing groups tore down hoardings to build the evening’s bonfires.[…] Just before the King’s speech, at nine Tuesday night, the big lamps outside the Palace came on and there were cheers and ohs from children who had never seen anything of that kind in their short, blacked-out lives. As the evening wore on, most of the public buildings were flood-lighted. The night was as warm as midsummer, and London, its shabbiness now hidden and its domes and remaining Wren spires warmed by lights and bonfires, was suddenly magnificent. The handsomest building of all was the National Gallery, standing out honey-coloured near a ghostly, blue-shadowed St. Martin’s and the Charles I bit of Whitehall. The floodlighted face of Big Ben loomed like a kind moon.

We file out by the St. Stephen’s entrance and the police have kept a lane through the crowd. The crowd are friendly, recognising some of the Members. I am with Nancy Astor who is, I feel, a trifle hurt that she does not get more cheering. We then have a service – and very memorable it is. The supreme moment is when the Chaplain reads out the names of those Members of Parliament who have lost their lives. It is a sad thing to hear. My eyes fill with tears. I hope that Nancy does not notice. ‘Men are so emotional,’ she says.

Canadian naval staff on VE day (credit: George Metcalf Archival Collection)

It was without any doubt Churchill’s day. Thousands of King George’s subjects wedged themselves in front of the Palace throughout the day, chanting ceaselessly, ‘We want the King’ and cheering themselves hoarse when he and the Queen and their daughters appeared, but when the crowd saw Churchill, there was a deep, full-throated, almost reverent roar. He was at the head of a procession of Members of Parliament, walking back to the House of Commons from the traditional St. Margaret’s Thanksgiving Service. Instantly, he was surrounded by people – people running, standing on tiptoe, holding up babies so that they could be told later they had seen him, and shouting affectionately the absurd little nurserymaid name, ‘Winnie, Winnie!’ One of two happily sozzled, very old, and incredibly dirty cockneys who had been engaged in a slow, shuffling dance, like a couple of Shakespeare’s clowns, bellowed, ‘That’s ‘im, that’s ‘his little old lovely bald ‘ead!’

Today the people of London and their children and thousands of visitors took to the streets and parks to celebrate victory in Europe. Flags flew from all the buildings. Shop windows were stuffed with red, white, and blue clothes, flowers and materials. Planes flew overhead, and streamers, ticker tape and paper poured out of windows. There was no traffic because people filled the streets and pavements. I walked to the office and found only Air Marshal Slessor there. ‘It’s a National Holiday – you should have come,’ he said. ‘Supposing I stay and help till lunchtime,’ I said and added, ‘besides it’s a brilliant time to throw some of your more boring papers out of our windows.’ Before I left I peeled the canvas off one window and emptied the contents of five wastepaper baskets on to Kingsway. I longed to be more generous but did not dare.

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6 Responses

What a lovely celebration piece, Claire, thank you! I read this when it first came out from Persephone and loved the detail.

I’m not in the same house as my books, but I do have Angela Thirkell’s Peace Breaks Out with me. She wrote contemporaneously with such events as VE Day and has a nicely astringent approach which always cheers me up.